Oil Well Bootlegs - RSC CD: Pink Floyd - If You Were A Bluebird Oil Well

Pink Floyd - If You Were A Bluebird
Oil Well - RSC CD 106

1. Obscured By Clouds 5:52
2. When You're In 7:53
3. Set The Controls For The Heart Of The Sun 13:27
4. Careful With That Axe, Eugene 11:01
5. Echoes 24:37
6. One Of These Days 8:40
Total Time: 1:11:33

Note:
All songs by Waters/ Wright/ Mason/ Gilmour unless noted.
Live in London, UK - May 19, 1973

Lineup:
Roger Waters (vocals, bass)
David Gilmore (vocals, guitar)
Richard Wright (keyboards)
Nick Mason (drums)
Dick Parry (sax)

Black Grass (backing vocals):
Nawasa Crowder
Mary Ann Lindsey
Phyllis Lindsey

This album is a digital clone of: "Remergence" - Diamonds In Your Ear – DIYE 1
This Oil Well version has a fine cover, fine quality. Limited to 200 copies only. Due to its rarity and good quality, this disc is recommended. At the moment we don't know if Oil Well label released also a copy of Earl's Court, May 19, 1973 - Pt. 2

Incomplete recording from May 19th 1973 in London, UK.
All songs are complete with no noticeable flaws. There are not many '73 shows available and the presence of Oscured By Clouds/When You're In make this bootleg pecial. This is a stunning collection of songs from Floyd at their absolute peak. The performances are all superb with some great, extended psychedelic soundscapes. Sound quality: For a bootleg it's not awful by any means. There is the usual, detached and distant tinny sound that most boots tend to have but at least there is a level of bass, enough for it not to grate on the ears too much.

Audio quality:

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Pink Floyd – Earls Court 18 & 19 May 1973
On May 18th & 19th 1973 Pink Floyd played 2 sell out gigs at Earls Court (London) for SHELTER-National Campaign for the Homeless benefit.. The audience was estimated at 18,000 for each night. Many bands had failed to fill Earls Court in the past and the previous week, David Bowie had trouble pulling a crowd at the same venue.The question at the time was ‘could anybody fill Earls Court?’. Pink Floyd of course proved it could be done, not once but two nights in a row!!. As can be seen above all proceeds from these concerts went to ‘Shelter’.

In the early 1970s my Floyd addiction heightened.‘Meddle’ increased the desire to experience another show but the opportunity never arose. By now I was travelling between my home in Derbyshire and Nottingham where my future wife was training to be a teacher. Resplendent in RAF greatcoat (standard student issue) and a bottle green Princeton University Sweatshirt (Gilmour wore one), I was overcome with joy to procure two tickets for Earls Court in May 1973 when the Pink Floyd were to perform ‘The Dark Side of the Moon’ for two nights .Anticipation ran high . This was my Holy Grail moment. To experience what the press were calling the “premiere” of ‘The Dark Side of the Moon’, even though the songs had been toured for quite a while, was a dream come true. A spectacular show was promised, and it would be the last time they would perform ‘Set the Controls for the Heart of the Sun’ and ‘Astronomy Domine’, according to reports. Back then I recall thinking my whole life was leading up to this concert.

The show featured, Obscured By Clouds/When You’re In, Set The Controls For The Heart Of The Sun, Careful With That Axe Eugene, and Echoes, Dark Side Of The Moon suite, with One Of These Days played as the encore. The Friday night show (18th) was the first time Floyd used the crashing plane effect during a performance of Dark Side Of The Moon. Floyd were accompanied by Dick Parry on sax and backing vocalists Venetta Fields & Carlena Williams.

Earls Court, London, May 1973
What follows are recollections through a glass darkly but a true story. I am on a train. My head is somehow not connected to my neck.I can sense Sue’s arms around me. I feel as though I am speeding through time and space. Everything around me is blurring. Somewhere someone is telling me that I am hallucinating .
My love affair with Pink Floyd began at the age of sixteen when ‘See Emily Play’ beamed in from another galaxy via Radio Luxembourg and a mono headphone. (Stereo? Unheard of!). I loved the Beatles and was a Pink Floyd devotee, and I was delighted when ‘Disc and Music Echo’ (I think) reported that the Floyd were in Abbey Road recording at the same time as the Fabs. ‘The Piper at the Gates of Dawn’ and ‘Sgt. Pepper’ were purchased together with my first wage packet in 1967.

As with any relationship there are always difficulties to contend with. With Pink Floyd it begins with a broken heart. When Syd Barrett “left” the group, it was a shock. Without any news and hardly any TV, it was hard to understand what had happened until ‘A Saucerful of Secrets’ was released and the band were able to explain what was happening with Syd. The Floydian mystique was born in me in the late 1960’s, but living in deepest Derbyshire you lived on scraps of information to keep abreast of cultural events .

The chances of seeing the Floyd live seemed virtually impossible, and ‘More’ was a legendary LP I couldn’t find. At least ‘Ummagumma’ had four live tracks to alleviate the cravings, but sadly this didn’t work. Together with my great friend Peter we sojourned to Sheffield City Hall to finally attend a live Pink Floyd concert in 1970. They cooked ‘Alan’s Psychedelic Breakfast’ onstage to our amazement and delight.

The show begins
Our tickets were for the Saturday night and, seats taken, the programme (now lost) was in a comic book form, I recall. My nerves were jangling as the lights in the massive hall, full to capacity, dimmed. A roar went up. The rest, as they say, is history. The first set of ‘oldies” was mind blowing. Explosions, Nick Mason’s gong burst into flames, and swirling cosmic lights and dry ice swathed the Floyd in mystery. Ethereal synthesizers and keyboards and that guitar channelled notes from cirrus minor.

The ultimate in space rock. ‘Echoes’ was a revelation, the middle section, I recall, hitting a staggering groove with Dave wrenching emotion from his Stratocaster. Breathtaking and wondrous. In a flash it was the interval, and I felt drained and thirsty. Things become a little hazy from here on in. After buying a coke from a ‘vendor’ (which may have been a mistake), I sat down and encountered a gentleman with a green beard. For some reason this moment has stayed with me all these years. But wait - BA BOOM BA BOOM! The now famous heartbeat echoed around Earls Court. We were about to descend into the Dark Side. ‘The Dark Side of the Moon’ was a masterpiece. We gasped watching a Spitfire fly into the stage with perfect timing at the end of ‘On the Run’. ‘Time’ was staggering. I heard live the lyrics that meant so much to a 23 year old working class bloke who found both truth and solace in ‘Dark Side’ - “And then one day you find ten years have gone behind you/No one told you when to run/You missed the starting gun.” Words I quote to this day, and which are absolutely timeless! ‘The Great Gig in the Sky’ was astounding bringing the audience into a reverential state before my least favourite track on the album ‘Money’ introduced itself with cash registers ringing all around .

The Pink Floyd revved it up though and Dick Parry’s sax was wonderful. Gilmour completely ripped it up, notes searing and tumbling from his Stratocaster. It was absolutely joyous. From here on in a state of euphoria seemed to envelop me personally .The gig was beyond my wildest dreams as they seamlessly moved through the album. I recall becoming quite emotional during ‘Us and Them’. ‘Any Colour You Like’ was just an amazing trip. The band were on the top of their game. From here on in my memories were blurred and vague as the performance climaxed. I believe there was an encore. (Sue tells me it was ‘One of Those Days’ and research confirms it was).

Then “I am on a train”...Neither of us can remember where the train was going, where we alighted, how we found our car. We suspect we slept on the back seat but who knows. One thing is certain ‘The Dark Side of the Moon’ at Earls Court was and still is my “Gig of a Lifetime”.
from: http://www.pennyblackmusic.co.uk/magsitepages/article/7848/Pink-Floyd-Earls-Court-London-May-1973

Earls Court 1973 (Sigma 11)
Earls Court Arena, London, England – May 18th & 19th, 1973
The year that Dark Side Of The Moon was finally released was also the year that Pink Floyd went from a highly regarded progressive rock band into international superstars. They toured the US twice and Europe in the autumn, but played in England only three charity gigs: these two at Earls Court and the November 4th, Robert Wyatt at the Rainbow Theater in London. The May 18th show was the first to be scheduled and advertised and the second was added after the first sold out quickly. Played for the charity Shelter-National Campaign for the Homeless, these are the first two performances of Dark Side in its final polished arrangement (most notably “On The Run” and “The Great Gig In The Sky”).

The reviews of the shows were positive with Chris Charlesworth calling them “faultless” and Circus magazine in the US calling the first night “one of the most spectacular rock performances ever conceived.” Each concert was a sell out with an estimated 18,000 for each night. The concern leading up to the shows was whether or not Pink Floyd could overcome the obstacles many acts faced when playing this venue. David Bowie brought his Ziggy Stardust show to the arena the previous week (May 13) and the results were a disaster. People on the floor couldn’t see and people in the galleries couldn’t hear. Floyd’s advanced sound system more than compensated for that but the recordings still have the mid-seventies Earls Court boom to them.

Such was the high profile of these gigs that Pink Floyd received a tremendous amount of attention from the British press. Chris Welch interviewed David Gilmour for this article “Floyd Joy” in Melody Maker, New Musical Express ran another Gilmour interview in the Tony Tyler written “A Walk On The Dark Side,” and Soundsran a Roger Waters interview by Steven Peacock. But the biggest of all was the massive nine part article in Zig Zag magazine that remains one of the most in depth pieces ever written by the band. Both Waters and Nick Mason were interviewed about a week after the show and discuss the history of the band, Syd Barrett, their tours and movie involvements. Waters refer to the Earls Court shows as a circus, saying, “When we were setting up, I thought that it did look a bit like a circus with all these wires going into the audience. And the plane we used at Earls Court was very like those circus space rockets that people whip round and round in. It was silver and red and about six feet long, like a bloody great aluminum paper dart, flashing lights and smoke. Amazing.”

The first tape source for the May 18th show first appeared on vinyl on The Great Gig In The Sky (RSR/International RSR 236 A/D) and re-released under the same title but UFO Records-The Wizard’s Quest and copied on Earls Court. A second source surfaced that is better sounding but incomplete, missing the very end of “Any Colour You Like,” “Brain Damage,” and “Eclipse.” And edit of the two sources, with the first tape source used for the missing songs, was released on Earl’s Court Day 1(Ayanami-175) on CDR, and received heavy trading on the fan produced The White Bootleg. Sigma likewise is a two source mix and this is the first silver release of this show. The second tape is used for most of the show and the sound quality is very clear and dynamic but slightly distant. The first tape is thinner and more distorted but still fair to good and is edited in at 5:59 in “Any Colour You Like” and runs through “Brain Damage” and “Eclipse.” The second tape source is used again for the encore “One Of These Days.” There is a small cut at 11:17 in “Echoes” but is otherwise musically complete.

The set begins with the two opening songs from their soundtrack to La Vallée. The opening drone and accordian sound on the keyboards of the musette arrangement produces a French pastoral feeling before Mason kicks that aside with the drums and Gilmour comes in with the heavy metal guitar. “Set The Controls For The Heart Of The Sun” is not as intense as it was played in the US, but at about 9:47 Wright plays a very haunting, creepy melody before returning to the main theme. “This is another extremely oldie” Waters says before “Careful With That Axe, Eugene.” The first half ends with a twenty-five minute version of “Echoes.” The audience cheer loudly at the first ping as the band deliver another classic live version of the epic piece.

The second half is devoted to the Dark Sidealbum. Gilmour has a lot of fun during “Money,” but he narrowly averts disaster in “Us & Them.” While singing the second verse “haven’t you heard, it’s a battle of words” Wright comes in with the third verse, “out of the way, it’s a busy day, I got things on my mind” by mistake. Wright then shuts up and lets Gilmour finish, and they get back on sync in the third verse after the saxophone interlude. The concluding jam on “Any Colour You Like” is interesting and the encore “One Of These Days” makes the rafters in the arena shudder.

Discs three and four document the Saturday, May 19th show. Compared to the previous evening, this one has received much more attention in the past. The non-Dark Side songs were released on Remergence (DIYE 17) and on If You Were A Bluebird (Oil Well – RSC CD 106) while the entire performance has seen release on Earls Court, May 19, 1973 (Lizard Archives 010-011) and Earls Court 1973 (Orange Records OR12A/B). But the most visible incarnation of this concert is on the fan produced CDR Supine In The Sunshine (HRV VDR 011). The tape used is loud and clear but lacks the dynamics of the main source used for the May 18th show. There is a bit of tape crinkle about fifteen minutes into “Echoes” but there are no major cuts presenting the complete concert.

The second Earls Court show is much looser than the first. The band are more relaxed and seem to have a more fun time of it. “When You’re In” has some very hostile guitar riffs coming from Gilmour’s guitar, but “Set The Controls For The Heart Of The Sun” reverts back to being a psychedelic exploration of space rather than the mini-horror show it was the previous evening. “Echoes” closes the first set again and is another masterpiece. The band hit a tremendous groove about half way through that puts a stranglehold on the audience and they never let go. In the second half, the audience applause the crashing plane at the end of “On The Run.” Gilmour again finds some hostility and attacks the guitar during the solo in “Money” and Wright remembers his cue during the eight minute rendition of “Us & Them.” “Any Colour You Like” reaches epic proportions and serves as a tumultuous contrast to “Brain Damage.” These are two classic concerts that are essential to the Pink Floyd collection. It is strange the poor treatment and neglect they’ve receive in the past by silver labels, but Sigma more than make up for it with this gorgeous production. It is packaged in a fatboy jewel case with several photos of the event and is limited to two hundred copies.